


Put Your Hands Into the Fire

by deathwailart



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-20
Updated: 2011-08-20
Packaged: 2017-10-22 21:25:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/242748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathwailart/pseuds/deathwailart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Battlestar Galactica, Leoben/Kara, he ate my heart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Put Your Hands Into the Fire

New Caprica, it changes her. All that time away from the people she’s fought beside, fought with since the destruction of the colonies, since the Cylons came back and practically nuked her race out of existence. She wonders if Sam is still alive; he better not have frakking died on her, not after she took the plunge, stood in front of her Gods and married him, both of them with their matching ink.

She misses Galactica. She misses the rack and being crammed in and at each other’s throats. She misses the scrambles for clothes and Hotdog and Kat acting like kids and how that ‘inside of a Viper’ smell never really went away. She misses the piss-poor excuse for showers. She misses running the halls of the ship, of knowing each and every twist and turn. Unlike this grey box, Galactica’s familiar interior never got boring, never made her feel trapped. It was home. More of a home than that apartment she’d barely managed to keep back in Delphi.

The old man, Lords, what is he doing now? It’s harder and harder to keep hanging onto her dogged hope the longer she remains cooped up here. She wants to believe he’ll come for them; he’ll bring them home because that’s what he does. He looked for her when she was down on that red moon. That feels like another life. How many is she going to have? How many lives can one person lead until they find one that fits perfectly, one that they can stand up in a say, “this is me, this is who I am”. She’s still searching. This place, even with the bare walls, make her think of Caprica and her memories of that place are equal parts untouchable and tainted; Caprica was still home, where she grew up, where she played Pyramid until her knee ended that, where she was shaped. But Cylon doctors and machines and baby farms and pieces of her being missing...well, those things? They still make her jerk awake with cold sweats, running fingers over scars. Caprica gave her hope though. The Arrow of Apollo, the promise of Earth, of Kobol. It brought Helo back even if he was touched in the head and talking about loving a Toaster and having frakking pop-tarts or whatever the hell with it. It brought her the Resistance. And Sam. SamSamSam. And all this makes her think of Roslin, of her dreams and how Roslin would never have let them settle here for so long.

Then there’s Lee.

Is Lee out there?

Does he think about her?

It’s not a good idea to think of Lee and what might have been lying out in the open and screaming their love to the skies.

As frakked as it is, thinking about Leoben is a safer option. Leoben and his frakking bullshit about love and destiny and this freak-child that came from the part of Kara that they stole from her. Did they grow her (she forgot when Kacy stopped being ‘it’) in a pod? Implant her in one of those poor souls wired into a machine. Sue-Shawn. Sue-Shawn drugged and all those other women. Mercy killing. Frakking frakked up Toasters and Skin Jobs.

She is white-hot rage, incandescent, and it burns in her veins even as she plays house with Leoben and Kacy and part of her is so scared. Scared for this child and everything her mother inflicted upon her and the old man’s speech piped through the speakers while she was stuck in hack for punching Tigh. (Tigh. Ellen. Chief. Cally. Duck. Nora. Gaeta.)

When Leoben is gone and once Kacy is now a firm part of Kara’s life (she is not going to repeat those mistakes and she remembers her hand and the door jam and sick clenching fear and begging and salt taste in her mouth) she almost gives in and cries. She thinks about being trapped here on this frakking mudball forever, grounded and shackled.

She misses the sky. Her sky. She misses space. Grab your gun and bring in the cat boom boom boom. Nothing but the rain. Starbuck, Apollo, Galactica actual. Razzle-dazzle and all those g’s and the satisfaction of blowing Raiders to pieces before scurrying home to safety and giddy-sweet relief before it all happened again.

She misses _Starbuck_.

She isn’t Starbuck down here. She isn’t the woman messily entwined with Adama men both living and dead. She isn’t the best Gods damned pilot in the whole frakking fleet. She isn’t the woman who hotwired the same Raider she downed and flew it not once, but twice. She isn’t Starbuck at all; Starbuck disobeyed orders, almost got herself killed, followed the dreams of a woman she barely knew and flew back home and then set foot on Kobol and looked to the stars, sure she was looking at the path to Earth. Frak, she isn’t even the person Sam married. Leoben has taken care of that. He has ripped out her heart by bringing her here, making her a prisoner and slowly he is wearing her down because he just downloads, remembers everything and still smiles at her. Forgives her.

He has ripped out her heart, consumed it and she is left with the messy useless parts and no way to assemble them into anything resembling useful.

She curls up with Kacy, hot sweet innocent breath on her cheek and she is so tempted to give in to this. But Starbuck, some part of her that will never be excised, chafes and rails and spits, furious and fierce and she just holds Kacy tighter and waits. She needs to think outside the box. Outside this box.

Outside the box is where she lives.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Into the Fire by 13 Senses


End file.
